Good blog.
At some point this whole healthcare situation is going to be unsustainable, in fact it already is, and we are starting to see the beginnings of a very rapid collapse i think.

The most seriously hit are low income and retirees. Many of the retirees had very good jobs, worked for many years for the same company and are now seeing their whole pensions dedicated towards healthcare.

I myself with 20 years to go before retiring, if i stay at the same company, will have no healthcare retirement benefits, and my work benefits have been significantly reduced in the last 3 years.

Rationing healthcare on the basis of who can afford it simply isnt the way to go. As less and less people can afford it, the cost will increase, forcing more people to drop out.

For the richest country on the planet, it simply isnt good enough.

Healthcare savings accounts and catastrophic insurance ? Who has 12k a year to spend ?

Price controls are needed. The most obvious solution would be to offer medicare to everyone, its efficient, remarkably so.

I had hopes for Kerry's plan, it seemed sensible, but alas....america will continue with its sick sickness for 4 more years.

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Reading all this makes me feel thankful that I live in Europe. I have no pre-counted "sick days"; when I feel poorly I just call in, and if I miss more than three subsequent days of work I am expected to present a doctor's note. Therefore when I feel a bad cold taking hold, I often spend one day at home to choke it off early if possible, which is often quite sufficient. (I do not even think of the added benefit to colleagues).

Even so, or maybe because of this practice, I usually stay well below our national average of eleven sick days/year. Some years I had no sick days at all, other years it is between two and seven altogether.

In my particular field (public service) I would only lose employment if I remained sick for a whole year, without interruption, but of course frequent ill health affects promotion prospects.

I work in a situation that if I take off work my boss is left to run the store himself for 13 hours, because of the current economic conditions the store can't afford to hire another full-time person. (We do have a part-timer that works full-time at another job where it would leave her boss alone for the whole day if she worked in my place.) My conscience won't let me do that. I had a cold, last month, that developed into bronchitis and only took a total of 4 hours off, only because at one point I thought I was going to pass out. I work with the public---how many people did I infect? Our healthcare/economic system will be our undoing.